Names at Native Bound Unbound
Developing a Standard
Names are among the most revealing yet unstable elements in the colonial record. They shift across languages, spellings, and contexts, often reflecting the power dynamics of the worlds that produced them. At Native Bound Unbound, our work to standardize person names seeks not to flatten that complexity, but to make it visible, traceable, and searchable across centuries of documentation.
Early in the process, the NBU team faces the question of how to deal with variant spellings and forms of names in the records. We decided that in transcriptions, names should be left with original spelling, in accordance with our transcription norms, but that in translation, names should be in standardized spelling per language. To this end, we have guides per language that help the translation team keep names standardize. They currently cover French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Where other projects rely on automated normalization, NBU’s approach is human-centered: each name is evaluated in its historical and linguistic context before a standardized form is assigned. This allows the database to respect the integrity of the source material while ensuring that people can be located across documents and regions, regardless of spelling or language variation.
Principles of Practice
- Faithfulness to the Historical Record
Original spellings are preserved in transcriptions, while standard forms are used as “display names” in the database. - Cross-referencing and Variants
When individuals appear under multiple names, NBU assigns a primary name and records all known alternate forms. Variants may include an Indigenous name, a nickname, or names that changed after relocation, marriage, or conversion. - Regional and Linguistic Variation
This decision to standardize names was challenged by regional variants of names that develop historically. For example, the name Gurulé in New Mexico came for a French explorer, Jacque Grole. However, since the standard form has been Gurulé for many years regionally, we have used this as the standard surname. As NBU expands into Dutch, Italian, and Indigenous-language materials, the collaborative process to decide on standardized names will continue to be deloped through collaboration with linguists and descendant communities. - Ethical Transparency
The act of naming in colonial archives was often an act of control. NBU records both the name assigned within the document and, when recoverable, the self-identified or community-recognized name of the individual. This dual representation acknowledges the violence of imposed identities while restoring agency wherever possible. - Controlled Vocabularies and Searchability
Standardized name fields underpin the database’s architecture, enabling precise cross-referencing across records, genealogies, and geographies. At the same time, variant forms remain fully searchable in transcription, allowing users to locate individuals through multiple pathways.
Implementation
Standardizing names within NBU follows a structured, iterative process:
- Extraction and Verification – Names are identified in transcriptions and verified against language-specific guides.
- Normalization – The standardized form is used in translation. For unique names not already in our internal guides, NBU researchers, transcribers, and translaters discuss the most appropriate form to use.
- Quality Control – Translators and data specialists review each entry for consistency and metadata accuracy.
- Continuous Expansion – The lists of given names, surnames, ethnonyms, and titles are living documents that grow as new materials and languages are incorporated.
Names and Translation
Because names often shift form and meaning across languages, the translation process is deeply connected to name standardization. Translators rely on the name guides to maintain consistency while preserving cultural and linguistic specificity. Honorifics and titles such as Don, Doña, or Fray remain untranslated, and ethnonyms or caste terms (e.g., genízaro, panis) are retained in their original form.
This collaboration between translators, transcribers, and data teams ensures that every record—regardless of language—remains coherent within the larger corpus, allowing readers to trace individuals across empires, regions, and archival systems.
Expanding the Horizon
Although the first naming guides were rooted in Spanish colonial sources, NBU is already applying and adapting these principles to Portuguese, French, and English records, while also beginning work with Dutch, Italian, and multiple Indigenous languages. This next phase of development involves consultation with linguists and cultural authorities to ensure respectful and accurate representation of Indigenous naming systems, including instances where names resist direct translation or exist within oral traditions.
Each new language enriches the project’s capacity to reveal the complex histories of identity, kinship, and captivity that connect the Americas.
A Living Record
The standardization of names at Native Bound Unbound is not an attempt to impose uniformity but to create clarity without erasure. By linking variant spellings, multilingual forms, and historical orthography, NBU restores coherence to fragmented identities while acknowledging the instability that colonial recordkeeping imposed.
Every name recovered becomes a point of connection—across documents, across languages, and across the hemispheric history of Indigenous enslavement.
